


come get your painkillers from me

by janie_tangerine



Category: Bastille Day (2016)
Genre: Couch Cuddles, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7800229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[MOVIE SPOILERS]</p><p>in which Michael patches Briar's arm up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come get your painkillers from me

**Author's Note:**

> So I was taking prompts on tumblr just after seeing this and someone goes like _how about some hurt/comfort between the boys,like Michael taking care of Briar's bullet wound as a thank for, well saving his life_. WHO AM I TO SAY NO. This is basically just a missing scene and it's more pre-relationship than anything else but hey I guess I couldn't just do porn with these two xD the title is from Brian Fallon, nothing belongs to me as usual and THIS MOVIE NEEDS MORE LOVE.

“Don’t even try _that_.”

Right, given that Michael should be _patching up Briar’s fucking wound_  right now, maybe pushing him back against his sofa wasn’t the best course of action, but the son of a bitch was about to stand up and walk down the stairs with an _openly bleeding wound_  in his arm and there’s a limit to everything.

“Gamieux is still out there -”

“And if you forgot that, _I_  have the fucking chip, there’ll be time to worry about that later, and _your arm is fucking bleeding_ , so how about you let me worry about it?”

Not that they have much choice beyond that. Michael had caught Briar limping out of the bank after he ran and the man said that he was just going to deal with it on his own, he couldn’t trust anyone at the CIA until this was solved, and - listen, Michael can deal with paranoia. He can understand paranoia, it’s something you learn to deal with in his line of work, even if Briar’s specific brand is way above and beyond his paycheck. In this case he has no problem indulging it given how things have gone up to this point, but still, he draws a line at leaving a guy who pretty much took a bullet meant for  _him_  taking it out on his own.

Never mind that he wasn’t entirely lying when he said that he wanted to be a doctor. _Once upon a time_ , he had really wanted to be one. He had looked into it, even if he never actually acted upon it. But he _knows_  how to deal with that kind of wound, at least in theory.

For that matter, he actually didn’t do bad - he dragged Briar back up to his place, not that he had any other choice, and he still doesn’t know how didn’t anyone in the metro notice that the man was hunched on himself and _bleeding out_. Then again, it wasn’t full and people can mind their business, he supposes. Then he had gotten the bullet out, good thing that it was a clean shot and hadn’t hit anything vital or shattered, and he was about to go get something to bandage it with -

And Briar had decided to _stand up_.

Yeah, over his dead body, and patience if it’s not funny in this circumstance.

“It’s nothing,” Briar goes on. Of course he’d say that.

“Okay, so if I shove you back on the sofa it’s not gonna hurt, is it?”

Briar freezes for a second and sends him a look that says _don’t you dare even thinking about it,_  and then he realizes what he has just done.

“My point exactly. Just stay the fuck there already, you might have survived worse but what are you even accomplishing by leaving already? Because I’m not agreeing to whatever plan you’re brewing already if you’re bleeding all over my floor.”

“Fine, _fine_ ,” Briar sighs, and sits back down. Good. Michael hurries to the bathroom to grab some extra bandages, he didn’t have any large enough in the first aid kit, then sits back on his chair.

“Right. Turn around a bit, I need to clean it up before wrapping it.”

He puts some disinfectant over one of his gauze bandages and starts dabbing at the half-open wound with it. Briar hisses and flinches minutely, but then that’s it. Michael doesn’t even want to know how that doesn’t seem to rank that much higher on his pain scale, because he’s fairly sure he’d be howling if it was him right now -

Except that _it could have been_ , couldn’t it?

He shakes his head and goes ahead with it - the last thing he needs is going on _that_  tangent, fuck. Better that he worries about disinfecting the near hole in Briar’s shoulder, which will most likely scar over and add a new number to what he sees is a fairly large collection - the man’s back is kind of covered. Some are definitely bullet scars, and fairly worse than the one he’s tending to. He’s sure there’s a knife scar near his hip, or if it’s not a knife it was definitely some kind of blade. Most are old and he doubts any might hurt still, and he has to kill the instinct of running his fingers over a few of them - it’d hardly be appropriate right _now._  Never mind that _fine_ , regardless of the man’s attitude he hasn’t quite stop been able himself from thinking he was _definitely_  attractive since the fucker smiled in the elevator, damn him to hell and back, and the sight in front of him is doing absolutely nothing to put a stop to it. But still, it’s not really fucking appropriate to wonder how it would feel to brush his mouth against a fairly _bad_  bullet wound Briar has on the opposite side of his back right _now,_ and so he bites down on his tongue and pours some more disinfectant over his gauze. When he’s satisfied that Briar’s not bleeding out anymore he throws the bloodied gauze in the trash, cleans off the remaining disinfectant around it with a new one, places a few clean squares over it carefully and then grabs the roll he took in the bathroom so he can wrap everything up and make sure they stay in their place.

“Right. Raise that arm a bit.”

Briar huffs and does, Michael pointedly does _not_  look at the way his muscles flex as he does, and wraps the damned wound up, taping it for good when he has made sure everything is tight enough. He throws the roll back into the med kit, and then his fingers brush against the - for now - pristine white gauze around Briar’s arm, stopping in the middle, and - shit. He shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have because now he can’t stop thinking _that was meant for me and it wouldn’t have hit me in the shoulder or somewhere equally harmless._

“Are we done?”

“In theory, but you’re not going anywhere at least for the night.”

“I’m fine -”

“Sure you are, you’re still sleeping that off before we decide what to do about the chip.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary, I’ve done worse -”

“I have absolutely no doubts about that, and you’re still not fucking going anywhere.”

“I think I’m more than capable of guessing if I can handle it.” Briar is rolling his eyes, but Michael’s having none of that.

“I have a _lot_  of doubts about that since you wanted to take that bullet out on your own, but you’re not risking it.”

“We have no time -”

“We have the _chip_ , he’s never going to try and leave without it, and for fuck’s sake, just _stay there for six hours_ , is that too much to ask for?”

“I’m _fine_  -”

“ _You_  say so and _that fucking bullet was meant for me_ , so how about you stop that?”

… That came out slightly more hysterical than he had wanted it to. Damn it. He hopes Briar catches the hint and lets it go, or -

“What’s even the problem?”

Fuck that. It’s been a few tiring days, he has unwillingly contributed to the death of at least four people because he couldn’t _not_  steal that fucking bag, he has almost died and Briar’s there looking at him as if he doesn’t get why he’s freaking out, which he _should_  since he made no mystery that he read Michael’s fucking file, and -

Fuck. That.

“The problem is that the reason why I ended up in this city and this mess in the first place is that people _don’t_  take bullets for _me_ , you absolutely fucking reckless idiot, and for a moment there I thought you were _dead_  and all things considered I prefer you being a  _living_  annoying ass, all right?”

 _That_  sounded even more hysterical, and wait, did he actually say out loud _that_  - fuck. Fuck. Briar for a moment looks at him in complete bewilderment, then - then he shrugs and leans back against the sofa, some, but he’s still looking at him. Damn it. If he’s not figuring out what Michael’s just told him it’s not going to take long.

“One would think,” Briar says slowly, “that _I_  am not the one most affected, here.”

“Maybe because one of us has to be a reasonable person with a self-preservation instinct and that’s obviously not _you_?”

“Could be,” Briar concedes. “By the way, taking bullets for people isn’t exactly my idea of a good time either, but you should consider the idea that maybe you’re not, you know, entirely disposable.”

Wait, did he just -

Michael looks up at him - he had been staring down at his hands before. “What.”

“You heard that right the first time, like hell I’m saying it again.”

Michael wants to ask, _would it kill you to_ , but - knowing the man,  _maybe_  it would. All things considered.

Especially given that he just told him -

“Are you saying _I was worth it_?”

“I didn’t say _that_.”

“Briar, you were bleeding out on my couch, in an apartment you about chased me out of twelve hours ago, and you’re _still_  crashing on said couch, and that was so that I wouldn’t get killed, so can you just you stop? It’s been a few long days. I never thought _I’_ d ever be in the position to say it, but how about we cut down the bullshit? Because I’m really not in the mood.”

For that matter, he feels _exhausted_. Briar breathes out, looks at him, and says nothing for what seems like a very long time.

“What if I was saying that you were?” He finally answers, and he sounds halfway amused, the bastard. Michael can’t help thinking,  _fuck that, and obviously the first person who tells me such a thing in years, if anyone ever told me straight, is someone whose first name I don’t even know_ , and it probably says everything about the current status of things in his life. It had to be a CIA agent who _chased him on rooftops_ , for the love of everything, and isn’t it the saddest thing that he doesn’t even know what to answer?

“Then how about you stop giving me heart attacks if you care that much?” He finally blurts out, figuring that it’s the closest he can get to actually putting his turmoil of feelings into words.

They stare at each other for a long, long moment.

Briar shrugs and - and moves back a bit, _making space on the couch_?

Michael doesn’t want to assume things, but - but that’s obvious, isn’t it? He swallows as he stands up and sits back down again on the couch - he kicks off his shoes, and damn but he’s noticing how much his feet are hurting just _now_  - and then Briar huffs and _lies down_.

Is he actually fucking doing something sensed for once?

Michael has no clue but he’s not looking at gift horses in the mouth - he follows, and he wants to laugh hysterically if he thinks that after all he _has_  ended up sharing close space with a shirtless Briar, except  _not_  in the way he might have imagined a few times after that elevator ride.

Yeah, he definitely had imagined other scenarios, none of which included any of them getting shot, but those scenarios hadn’t even considered that Briar might actually tell him that -

That -

He breathes in, putting a hand on Briar’s hip tentatively.

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but Briar doesn’t punch him in the face.

Briar, actually, half-smirks and moves back a bit - his bad arm is lying on the inner side of the couch, but the good one is on the outer one and he wraps it around Michael’s shoulders, and that’s how he ends up with his palm flat on Briar’s stomach (scars everywhere there too, for that matter) and Briar’s arm pulling him against his side and -

It’s not that he’s been a monk since he arrived here - all the contrary. He’s had a lot of casual sex with a lot of guys, French or not, and he’s had enough admittedly shitty boyfriends back in the US, and he’s fairly sure that maybe the last time he did something like this was in high school with his second so-called boyfriend, who was less of an asshole than his first or his third and actually wanted to  _date,_ or whatever passed for dating when they went to high school back in the day.

Christ, he’s way over in his head and his life is a mess.

“Thanks,” he blurts out, figuring he can’t put it any better and he  _should_  say something.

He can’t see Briar’s face now but he can imagine how smug he must look just by the tone.

“You’re welcome. Nice to see my merits recognized.”

Of course. Because _he_  sure as fuck hasn’t thanked Michael for patching him up, but what’s worrying is that Michael is starting to think that he doesn’t even mind, if the insane bastard actually thanked him he’d start getting worried.

“Just don’t fucking move for the next six hours.”

“I guess I could do worse.”

Michael wants to laugh, honestly, because what else is left other than that, but -

But maybe they can just both shut the hell up and not move and it’s ridiculous that even if Briar has a fucking bullet wound in his shoulder there’s some part of his brain telling him that he can just relax, if he’s next to _this_  guy sure as hell he’d have it under control if shit hit the fan all over again, but he’s too tired to fight it, and honestly, it doesn’t even matter anymore.

Not in the face of what just went down, anyway.

“Guess you could,” he agrees, and closes his eyes.

Admittedly, the temptation to lean over and kiss the guy just to shut him up with his _I could do worse_  was there, but he’s too tired and Briar’s too tired, he can feel it, and - well.

Hopefully, there’ll be time later.

But if he’s reading the signs well, then there might be, and for now it’s enough.

 

End.


End file.
